1. Field of Technology and Background
A beam, referred to in the present invention, is a processed output target signal of multiple receivers. A beamformer is a spatial filter that processes multiple input signals (spatial samples of a wave field) and provides a single output picking up the desired signal while filtering out the signals coming from other directions. The term adaptive beamformer refers to a well-known generalized sidelobe canceller (GSC), which is a combination of a beamformer providing the desired signal output and an adaptive interference canceller (AIC) part that produces noise estimates that are then subtracted from the desired signal output further reducing any ambient noise left there on the desired signal path. Desired signal is, e.g. a speech signal coming from the direction of the source and noise signals are all other signals present in the environment including reverberated components of the desired signal. Reverberation occurs when a signal (acoustical pressure wave or electromagnetic radiation) hits an obstacle and changes its direction, possibly reflecting back to the system from another direction.
2. Problem Formulation
Major problem in prior-art GSC adaptive filtering is the desired signal leakage to the adaptive filters that causes desired signal deterioration in the system output. Also, when the target is moving, the beam direction must be changed accordingly requiring calculation of a new blocking matrix or using pre-steering as described by Claesson and Nordholm, “A Spatial Filtering Approach to Robust Adaptive Beaming”, IEEE Trans. on Antennas and Propagation, Vol. 40, No. 9, September 1992. In prior-art systems steering is typically not considered and the beamformer is assumed to point in only one known fixed look (target) direction.
3. Prior Art
In conventional GSCs, it can be possible to try preventing a desired signal cancellation by restricting the performance of the adaptive filters (e.g. leaky LMS, least-mean-square) and/or widening the spatial angle used for blocking.
Prior-art solutions are sub-optimal in a sense that they (e.g., leaky LMS adaptive filters) may not provide as good interference cancellation as would be possible without restricting the performance of the adaptive filter. Also, the blocking matrix is conventionally formed as a filter that is calculated as a complement to the beamforming filter and, therefore, changing the look (target) direction of the beamformer requires typically a rather exhaustive recalculation of the complementary filter when the desired signal source moves around. On the other hand, complementary filters could be stored in a memory, which requires that filter coefficients are stored separately for each look (target) direction. In that case, the actual look (target) direction of the beamformer is restricted to the look directions obtained from the pre-calculated filters in the memory. One more alternative is to use pre-steering of the array signals towards the desired signal source (the desired signal is in-phase on all channels). However, pre-steering requires either analog delays or digital fractional delay filters, which, in turn, are rather long and therefore complex to implement.